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Good morning!
I will get a course map of the tunnel/jump threadle discrim – it is a fun one!
On your tunnel work here – he was doing super nicely! I think the reason he was not driving to the cookies or even to the toy that well had to do with your foot position before he entered. He was entering beautifully but the last thing he saw was your feet rotated… so he exited, turned. GOOD BOY! That is what we want when the dogs see that rotation before entering (we wouldn’t want them to exit in full straight ahead extension) so I believe that is why he was coming back to you rather than the reward.
Now, you could of course work the PT and toy cue to the point that he drives to it even when you are rotated, and use the cue before he enters.Or, you could start a little further away (which he is ready for) and let him see you turn and move towards the reward before he enters. The timing would be as soon as he turns his head to the tunnel, you turn and accelerate. And when you don’t turn and your feet remain rotated, you reward him for driving to you because we most definitely want to maintain that excellent turn skill that he is offering 🙂
The serpentines are looking really strong!!! He is driving right in and does not appear to be considering bypassing the jump at all. Yay! So, move to the next step which is simply moving up the timing of the toy cue to before he touches your hand, so he starts to anticipate the go-back-out-element of the serp. When he is doing that, you can add your motion in.
I think his threadles are going fine – the mistakes he is making are similar to several of the other pups here – and I was trying to figure out why my pups were not making that mistake. I am confident that it is NOT because of better training skill LOL!! So what was the difference? I think I figured it out – the mistakes are similar to the mistakes I am seeing with the other pups with the cookie toss starts – they are getting the cookie and driving back fast, but they don’t really have the time to assess the handler position or process the verbal when coming in from the harder angles, so they are almost always ending up taking the bar as a serpentine not a threadle. Basically, it adds pup motion in too early in the process. When I get to this point in the threadles with adding the angles, I almost always start my pups in a stay so I can get my butt into position, show them the cue, let them process for a heartbeat… then release them to do it. That extra moment appears to be what helps them say “AH! *Not* a serp.” Using reset cookies or a ‘loop’ does not help the pups in this case. So, to help him out, use a stay behavior of some sort: it can be a traditional sit stay, or a station behavior on a cot or something, or anything where he can successfully hold position then process the cue. The cookie toss starts still work really nicely when the pups are coming in on an easier slice angle so the serpentine choice would be harder. Let me know if that makes sense!
Nice work here!!
TracyHi there!
Overall, this is looking really good. Turn and Burns are perfect, the spins look lovely, his commitment looks great! He is keeping you honest about the connection for sure though LOL!>> Watched that video and realized I was good about looking at his eyes as he came around the barrel but then closed my shoulder while still looking at him and then took eyes off him before he passed me.>>
Yes, that is what happened at :23, :52, 1:09 for example. You can reframe your plan to not just convince yourself to connect and keep your shoulder open, but also to hold the connection til he reaches the next barrel. You don’t suck at this – baby dogs really hone our connection skills (at least he didn’t barrel into your butt like Contraband did :)) The rep at 1:27 was cool to watch: You started to disconnect, he started to blind cross to your other side, you caught it and reconnected, and he went to the side of barrel/tunnel that you wanted. Yay! So keep working that connection – yes, you can try to stay closer to the barrels so he passes you sooner, but that might not let you off the hook with maintaining the connection. Think of cuing the barrel with your arm way back and eyes on his eyes, you’ll see the barrel peripherally so you won’t run into it 🙂
Nice work!!
TracyHi! I love the work outfit LOL!!
He did think this was a little weird at first indeed! But he figured it out really quickly and then his speed picked right up. I wonder if (at this stage) the PNU or wing have more value so he might get the behavior even faster? Second session went nicely, he had some latent learning happening, plus you were moving faster. Plus an agility t-shirt, so maybe he thought it was more real LOL! I think you can get this onto the wing – he is not the type to hit the wing or barrel (or so it seems LOL!) so you can move to the wing and then name it the lalalala cue (which is the backside slice, right?)
Great job!
TGood morning!
Good stuff here on the wraps and 360s!
He is doing well on the head turning/upright wraps – my only suggestion is to reward away from you if you are rewarding the first turn rather than back in front of you: you can mark that first head turn then reward by tossing the treat either to the other side of the wing or all the way back around the PNU so he does a bit of a 360 on it. We don’t want him to directly look at you at all so all rewards are away from you 🙂 I think he was doing well with that, especially on the wing. Yay! Feel free to sometimes do a second one to keep the skill very fresh as you add more and more motion in the 360s 🙂
The 360s on the wing are looking really strong, truly putting together a ton of the work you have done with him: commitment, independence, countermotion, the slithery head turn, all good! He had one question at 1:24 – it was because you started on an angle and he was headed to the wing straight, so it totally did look like a RC cue (GOOD BOY!!). The other reps before it and the last one after it were better, but more room makes it easier to be straight on the line and not accidentally pressure in like a RC 🙂 You had more room in the outdoor session on the squished tunnel so your lines were easier to move on! He did seem a little stickier going to the barrel/tunnel, so perhaps it was the stimulation of the toy as you mentioned. That is GREAT to work through, though, because he is learning to work in a higher arousal and that is perfect for his age now. You can start that indoors and switch to food, then build it up to entire sessions with this tug toy.
Great job!
TracyHi!
>>I think I should have rotated more quickly for the spins – I was busy watching her go around the barrels>>
Understandable, she is really fun to watch 🙂
Yes, you can do the blind cross part of the spin sooner but it worked out just fine, because her commitment is REALLY lovely and you did the FC right on time and kept moving. So you were able to watch her wrap the barrel AND still show her the BC in a way she could read it, especially at :39 and :48. Nice!At :18 and :54 and :58, she ended up on the wrong side of you – she was not cheating LOL!! If you watch it in slow motion, you had connection for a moment as she rounded the barrel – then before she could get ot the new side, you looked forward and turned your left shoulder forward: which reads as a blind cross to the dogs, so she changed sides (good girl). I think I left a moment of this in the demo video when I did it, and my big pup slammed me in the butt trying to do read what he saw as the blind LOL! It is important to not mark it as an error when that happens, because it is not an error (or, not a DOG error hahaha!) and want the pups to feel confident driving to the new side if they think it is a blind. I just reward or keep going, making a stronger connection.
So – make the connection as you did, keep moving as you did – but maintain that connection strongly and don’t turn forward until she is passing you. You did more of this at :25 and 1:06 and 1:15, for example and she was perfect!
All of the turn and burns looked great!! And great job adding in the verbals on this too. I am really excited about her understanding of these 🙂
Tracy
Hi! Yes, you are doing it correctly! You can choose to use the opposite arm on the threadle if you like (or not :)) it can be done either way. She appears to want you to help by moving towards the correct end of the tunnel – and it did help her for sure, she was starting to find it and turn herself into it more and more during this session. Yay! So now the next step would be for you to move parallel to the tunnel (not towards the entry of the tunnel) while doing the cue and she should then independently put herself into the tunnel. This is hard, so move slowly and also be pretty close to the tunnel to start with. You can also mix in some ‘regular’ tunnel sends to the normal (non-threadle) entry, using your plain ol’ tunnel cue 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi! This also went really nicely – I love how she is coming in very directly over the bar, even as she got to the harder angles (and closer to the Treat n Train!!) 2 little tweaks for you as you progress this skill:
– Start your motion before the release (so you will be moving for a few steps while she is staying) and don’t release til you are just about at the exit wing. You were at entry wing or center of the bar on the releases, so she came over the bar but didn’t read the turn back out as well as you would get if you were a little further across the bar.
– Because she is doing so well, she doesn’t need to touch your hand at this stage. You can click the TnT when she comes in then turns away.Great job!
TGood morning!
Nice job on the head turns! Good clicks!!!! She is figuring out it is a head turn – yay! I am not sure she is figuring it that it relates to the upright yet – so stay very close to it now (adding distance draws her back to you) and you might find it easier to use your the same hand you sent her on to turn her back away to it – so if she starts on your right side, ‘grab’ her attention with your right hand (almost like a lap turn) and have her follow your hand to the turn near the upright – then click a tiny bit later, when she turns her head AND looks at the upright – probably one step later. That will help her relate it to the upright.
360s look really good!!! Be sure to start her from a clear cue – the only questions she had were when you were waiting on her to start, she was not sure if she should start, LOL!! When you clearly cued the to start with a little step and a little arm, she did great and you were able to move straight up the line and even add more motion! NICE!
TracyHi!
>> I could tell I was just starting to get frustrated, so I ended it with a treat scatter. >>
Any time we humans start to feel frustrated, it is always the smart thing to break off the session 🙂 I didn’t think that he looked frustrated, and that is good! I also don’t think that he was in a vortex of *not* threadling then getting a cookie, there was a significant enough break before the re-start cookie. I think that the angles got too difficult too quickly, so that combined with the cookie toss was leading to him trying to make decisions quickly (and that meant directly back to the ready treat). So 2 ideas for you:
with the cookie toss, keep the angles easier and only really do the slice angles until you are able to get 2 high success sessions in a row. With the cookie toss, he doesn’t have time to assess the set up before he moves, so when he is on the harder angle he is skipping directly to the end of the chain. On the easier slice angles, he will have more success with the full chain.And, before moving to the harder angles – get a stay going, either on the flat or on a mat or cot. That way you can assume the position, he can take a second to assess it – and *then* you release. That will lead to much higher rates of success for now because he will be able to assess before he moves. Eventually it will all be done while he is in motion but for now, starting him without his motion will be helpful.
Let me know how it goes!
TPerfect! Yes, we are adding in the verbal backside cue now too, with the end goal being that the verbal is the main part of the cue 🙂
Hi! You can try making the angle on jump 3 easier than the other angles, and the bar a little lower. You can just turn the jump so it is easier to approach (but jumps 1, 2, 4 can still be hard angles). Let me know if that makes sense, and let me know how it goes!
TracyYay! In in is looking really good!! Your feet were perfectly forward the whole time and you were moving right up the running line, relying on the verbal! You can add more of an arm cue if you like but you don’t want to add a lot otherwise it might cause your feet to turn. Good job being patient with letting her find the ‘back out’ element – she wanted to look at you after she came in, but you didn’t help her go back out (other than staying in motion): perfect! We don’t want her to rely on you having to cue that.
Now, next challenge (you might already be doing this): alternate reps of staying out on the 180 (or serping) the ‘obvious’ side of the jump with reps of the in in. Some dogs get themselves into a threadle vortex where all they can do is threadle, so keeping the 180 fresh in their minds is helpful.
Great job here!
TracyHi! Nice job on these – very clear connection and you were super fun & encouraging even in the heat! She definitely liked the race tracks! She got some serious speed on those in both reps! Because her race track/post turns are faster, you can build more speed into the crosses by reversing the order: do a race track/post turn around both once or twice to get the speed up, then do a front cross or spin (then a turn and burn exit :)) That can help her feel the wind in her hair through the crosses too!
Looking terrific. Stay cool!
TracyHi!
Yes, something with running is a great balance to the extreme-thinking needed for dog and handler in threadles 🙂 I like to do stuff like parallel path to the front of the jump, which is easy and doesn’t involve thinking, or rocking horses or tunnels 🙂
The threadles are going well, he did a great job finding them from various angles where he could clearly see the reward & the front side of the jump. Yay! You can really see that decision point at 1:04, for example! No worries about where your feet were pointing, it will get easier to point them to the reward when you are moving (I think he is ready for you to add movement in the next session). One thing to be careful of: stay super connected until he is over the bar. When you closed your shoulders and looked forward at :06, he read it as a blind cross and went behind you. Compare that to :39, for example, where you maintained connection and he was perfect. And if he does end up behind you – no need to stop him, you can just call him back (no big deal if he gets the cookie from the bowl). Generally when the dogs end up behind us it is a handling error (disconnection) and he was really put off when you dove on the bowl (kind of like when you stepped on the toy in the previous video) and was tentative on the next rep. So if he ends up behind you and get the cookie, you can call him back (rather than the usual party) and connect more on the next rep and then have a big party 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
He did really well here on the serps – both coming in and turning, and going to the toy on the verbal. Yay! You did a great job of being pretty darned stationary 🙂 Little details – when you are going to feed from your hand, feed across the body like you did at :57 so he does the ‘back out’ turn with your upper body in position. And also yes, he definitely felt it was a little ‘extra’ when you stepped on the toy LOL!!!! He was offended in the moment and then got his toy and left on the other reps – it made me laugh, he has big opinions LOL!! But yes, if he is incorrect. you can tell him he is being a nut but no need to step on the toy – he can get it but there is no party and I just take it back from the pup when that happens.Based on how well he did especially with the angles where he was starting next to the toy, you can start to add movement on these. Your upper body stays frozen just like here, it is the feet that will be going all the work.
Great job!
Tracy
